The Sri Lankan government is planning to pass laws granting immunity to members of its intelligence services who have been accused of grave human rights violations, Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) reports.
With several intelligence officers under investigation over alleged abductions, disappearances and extra judicial killings and some in detention, Sri Lanka’s cabinet of ministers have given approval to draft an act “in order to stop such things happening in future, to safeguard their official responsibilities, to grant them impunity, to give intelligence services legal powers and to deliver their national duties,” government spokesperson Bandula Gunawardena told journalists in Colombo.
The legislation to be named as the ‘National Intelligence Act’ had been proposed by the president’s elder brother and State Minister for Defence Chamal Rajapaksa.
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